We just started year 1 of homeschooling, my dd is in 1st grade, and my ds is 4.

Other than reading and writing ds is pretty much going along with dd curriculum, math seems to come very naturally to him, and his verbal language skills and comprehension are awesome so I know he will do just fine in the science, literature, history, and social studies areas.

My concern right now is reading/pre reading and writing skills. The issue is by no means his want to learn, he wont leave the lessons if I beg him to lol but with them at such different levels I dont know how to do both at once.

DD is beginning reading, we are reviewing short vowel sounds before moving onto the rest of the phonics rules but she has zero confidence in her ability to read anything even though she is able to read basics when encouraged, so I have to oversee, and prompt her throughout lessons. DS only knows about half of the letter names and only a few sounds so he obviously needs my attention to learn the rest.

Any ideas on how to get through reading/writing for them both without having to do separate times for each of them for this subject from those of you who are or have been there?

I cannot tell you how much I would appreciate your suggestions and advise!

My kids are 4 yrs apart so I always have to teach one and then the other. Are you against videos for your son? When mine were little, one of their favorite videos for learning their ABC's and sounds was a Richard Scary video. I think it was titled "Richard Scary's best ABC video ever" he has one for numbers and counting too which they really enjoyed also. What about letting him color or something while you work with your daughters reading/phonics he could color his letters.
I understand her needing the extra help when my daughter was in the first grade she was the same way and although she was doing fine she felt like she just couldn't do it so I had to sit with her and supervise the whole lesson. Once it clicked though she just got it. Now I can't keep her out of the books.

I dont have a problem with videos at all, but I would have to talk him into another room which could be a problem or my daughter would never work, she is to easily distracted by any outside activity, thats adds to the dificulty of doing different things with them at once. I will however have to see what I can find at the library and see if I can make that work as it sounds like it would be a much better way to go then they way its going right now.

I have had him doing some pre-writing sheets, tracing lines and humps and circles to work on his control, pencil grip, etc. with pictures at the top for him to color, but he whips through them very fast and even that is distracting for her while she is working on her phonics.

I am soooo glad to hear that my dd's lack of confidence is not unheard of and that she will "get over it" lol. My worst fear is my children will not love reading like I do, it just opens up the world to so much! I hope once they learn how fun it is to sit and read they will stop moaning every time I open up a new book of my own to read lol!

Hang in there it will get better! Something that I didn't think about earlier was that although she wasn't showing any signs, other than rubbing her eyes a lot, that she was having trouble seeing it turned out that my daughter needed reading glasses. After she got them she didn't mind quite as much doing the work. Just a thought.

If you can manage to do videos without distracting your daughter, another good one (my favorite) is Rusty & Rosy's ABCs and Such (might be listed as ABCs and Such). They go through the alphabet letter by letter, giving the name of the letter, and I think the letter sound, and they also draw the letter on the screen while instructing the child to draw the letter in the air with his/her finger. They sing the alphabet song every 4-5 letters, and they do the song in different styles (classical, spooky, operatic, etc...).

Any ideas on how to get through reading/writing for them both without having to do separate times for each of them for this subject

Just curious--why do you want to avoid separate times?

(That was always my solution--one-on-one time with me for each of them on the subjects where they were at different skill levels.)

Ramona

When revisiting the thread I felt as though I had ignored you. I didn't mean to. It isn't so much that I want to avoid separate times, its that my son doesn't want to allow it. I know its something that I will have to get him to cope with eventually but even if he gets his one on one first he has a fit when his turn is over and hers begins. I was hoping to find some magic way to do it all together before further torturing him lol. The other difficulty is finding things for him to do independently. Although he is very bright and could do more independently he wont. When you are interacting with him he knows it "all" but when left alone he "cant" and "doesn't know" anything (according to him lol) so often he is shuffled of to his room for throwing a fit when I need to help her one on one and even though it is necessary at times its a not so fun part of the mommy job that I would love to avoid when I can reasonably lol.

If you can manage to do videos without distracting your daughter, another good one (my favorite) is Rusty & Rosy's ABCs and Such (might be listed as ABCs and Such). They go through the alphabet letter by letter, giving the name of the letter, and I think the letter sound, and they also draw the letter on the screen while instructing the child to draw the letter in the air with his/her finger. They sing the alphabet song every 4-5 letters, and they do the song in different styles (classical, spooky, operatic, etc...).

...my son doesn't want to allow it. ...even if he gets his one on one first he has a fit when his turn is over and hers begins. ...The other difficulty is finding things for him to do independently. ...often he is shuffled of to his room for throwing a fit when I need to help her one on one...

Oh, OK. I think I get what you're saying now.

--You could implement an after-lunch siesta for all of you. As soon as the meal is over, get him settled down for a nap or at least quiet time. Once he's settled, do her reading work alone. When she's finished with the day's assignment, settle her down too and then you get a little time to yourself, a break. You might even be able to get a catnap some days! This worked great for our family.

--Who decides how long his one-on-one time is? Who decides when his turn is over? If you're just arbitrarily declaring that he has had his one-on-one time and it's now her turn, that might be the problem. It worked well for us to let the little one just hang out with me as long as she wanted to and after she had wandered off to play her own thing and didn't seem to be clinging to me any more, then I'd quietly slip into another room for academics with an older one.

--You could set aside a few toys or workbooks or something he really enjoys and decree that they are never used at any other time, only while you're doing one-on-one reading with her. Keep them in a high cupboard, or inside a locked drawer or something.